"One day, about three or four months after my marriage, as I was seated on the steps of my home, I thought I heard a voice whisper in my ear. I had hardly time to turn when I was seized, gagged, bound hand and foot, and brought back to this place. As soon as I was taken into her presence, my mistress had me chained to this post, but caused me to be released when my time of delivery approached. A month after his birth," pointing to the sleeping boy, "I was chained here again, and my child was brought to me to nurse; this was done until he could come to me alone. But they are not unkind; when it is very wet the slave-woman takes him to sleep under the shelter of her little shed. "I could free myself from these chains if I would promise never to quit the palace. That I will never do." She said this in a feeble and almost inarticulate voice. It was her last effort to speak. Her head drooped upon her breast as if an invisible power overwhelmed her at a blow; she fell exhausted upon the stones, her hands clasped, her face buried in the dust. It was a strange sight, and possible only in Siam. Certainly great misfortunes as well as great affections develop the intelligence, else how had this slave-woman reached the elevation to which she had evidently attained? But excess of sorrow had made her almost visionary. When I tried to comfort her, she turned her haggard face with its worn-out, weary look upon me, and asked if she had been dreaming. Her brain seemed to be in such an abnormal yet frightfully calm condition, that she half believed she was in a dream, and that her life was not a frightful reality. It was out of my power to comfort her, but I left her with a hope that grew brighter as I retraced my steps out of that weird place. After some tiresome wanderings I found my way out of the place at last. When I reached the school-room it was twelve o'clock, and my pupils were waiting. In the afternoon of the same day I went to the house of the Naikodah Ibrahim, and told him that I had seen his wife and child. He was much affected when he heard they were still alive, and was moved to tears when I told him of their sad condition. That night a deputation of Mohammedans, headed by the Moolah Hâdjee Bâbâ, waited upon me; we drew up a petition to the king, after which I retired, thankful that I was not a Siamese subject. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 7: This is the official title of the royal palace at Bangkok.] CHAPTER VI. KHOON THOW APP, THE CHIEF OF THE FEMALE JUDGES. Next morning, as if some invisible power were working to aid my plans, I was summoned early to the palace. I carried my petition and a small book entitled "Curiosities of Science" with me. The king was very gracious, and so pleased with the book that I took the opportunity of handing in my petition. He read it carefully, and then gave it back to me, saying, "Inquiry shall be made by me into this case." On the day after I received the following little note from the king:--